3rd place

The Plant

Michael J. Roberts

You're on a business trip with your boss, driving down a deserted highway in the middle of nowhere, when the car breaks down. You set off on foot seeking help, but you soon find yourself in the middle of a shocking conspiracy in a dangerous industrial complex. Can you penetrate the decades-old cover-up and reveal the secrets that might forever change the world?

4th place

Arrival, or Attack of the B-Movie Clichés

5th place

Enlightenment

Taro Ogawa

The intepid Adventurer has escaped the caverns. Nought remains to block a successful escape but this troll here. Hmmm. A one-room adventure. The author recommends this for people who grew up on Zork II and Advent, and begs people choosing their first piece of IF to play to look at other IF (preferably good IF!).

6th place

Mother Loose

Irene Callaci

It's been one of those days. It started out bad and just got worse: You're seven years old and in trouble a lot. You try to be good and to do as you ought, but nothing, it seems, goes exactly as planned. For instance, today things got quite out of hand: you poured your own milk, but it spilled on the floor; the cat wanted out just as you slammed the door; you didn't remember to turn off the faucet; your brother, poor thing, is still locked in the closet. But that wasn't all. No, indeed. Did I mention that things got much worse? They did. Pay attention: you're lost and alone and nothing's familiar. You wander around for a while until you're ready to panic. Then, out of the blue, an egg on a fence asks for help--and from you!

7th place

Little Blue Men

Michael S. Gentry

This game is a joke. This game is a warning. This game is a satire. This game is inspired in equal parts by Vaclav Havel's "The Memorandum" and Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". This game is a big, stupid shaggy dog story.

9th place

Persistence of Memory

10th place

Downtown Tokyo, Present Day

John Kean

In this game you actually play two people - one is the real you, sitting in the dark in a movie theatre, and the other is the hero of the film that you are watching. Originally conceived for Adam Cadre's infamous Chicken-Comp of June 1998 (spot the chicken-crossing-the-road).

11th place

Informatory

William J. Shlaer

You feel like weeping; you might as well have stayed by the slit in the stream bed and waited for plate tectonics to widen it. You are in front of that all too familiar white house again! Replay the beginnings of Adventure/Zork, with a few twists...

12th place

Ritual of Purification

13th place

The City

Sam Barlow

"An interactive short experience." This game is intended not as an exploration or a challenge, more as a situation. Stylistically interesting for its lack of banners, opening-titles, location-headers, status-line and meta-verbs such as "save".